"Can doors be opened? Who else walks down the hallway? How does player feel at this moment in the game?"

A sample of Hideo Kojima's more recent tweets. Of all of the analogies he could have used for game design, he had to go with the hallway. Guess what game people will associate with a hallway? P.T. He knows exactly that people will associate his analogy with that game.. It's like he's throwing salt in the wounds and rubbing it in our faces. The teasing was a bit tongue in cheek at first, but now it's getting annoying. With this, recent photos of him with Junji Ito at KojiPro, and him saying DS is not a horror game, I'm starting to think he's just doing all of this to get a reaction from people.

I'm not particularly concerned with Kojima. I have a certain level of respect for him but I don't worship him like a lot of people do. And from what I saw of PT, it wasn't Silent Hillish or particularly wonderful. That plus slapping Norman Reedus onto it made me kind of start mourning for the series before Silent Hills was even canceled.

Sorry, just being honest. I've become brave enough to be more honest about that now than I was at first. *Waits to be killed by an angry mob of fans*

Some of the statements Kojima has made about Death Stranding worry me. The idea of there being no losers smacks of a David Cage statement. Moreover, this is right on the heels of my leaving the 2017 season of Twin Peaks sorely disappointed. It's making me wary of "gods."

What I saw of P.T. was very interesting, had a refreshing indie vibe to it. Never got to play it, 'cuz I waited for the white slim model to come out in Japan before getting a PS4. It featured none of the Silent Hill standards or tropes, but that was okay, since Silent Hill wasn't explicitly associated with it until the very end.

Really, at this point, I wish the series had ended at 3. Again, off the heels of Twin Peaks and Dark Souls 3, it really is better for things to end on a high note instead of being dragged down into the dirt.

I believe his statement about there being "no losers" is related to things he's said earlier with emphasis on cooperation and also some new way of using the 'death' state in games.

This was also evident from an article he did talking about the movie Dunkirk, where Nolan did not make a typical 'war' movie, but rather a movie about 'escape.'

Similarly Kojima mentioned how Konami told him to make an action game, but the concept he came up with was one where 'hiding and stealth' was the emphasis.

Given that he's mentioned that he wants to do something similar with Death Stranding where he wants to do something new with genre convention, he is probably referring to changing how we think about the state of death or failure in gaming.

I suppose it's similar to Cage's deal where the story keeps going even if a character fails, but Kojima likely is referring to gameplay mechanics rather than story. Given the idea behind Death Stranding is basically being stranded in some kind of afterlife, the concept of death might work differently, along with the concept of preferring the 'rope' to the 'stick' in an action game.

It's probably something where you have to convince your enemy to come over to your side. But this is also likely optional much like how when stealth fails in MGS you have to come out shooting, but ideally you progress better by following the main mechanic of cooperation as you would stealth.

I also didn't think P.T. was "typical" Silent Hillish, but then again sometimes a video game series needs to reinvent itself to stay relevant. This is why I love Silent Hill 4: The Room, for example. It tried something new, while still staying true to the atmosphere and horror of the series.

P.T. was neither first nor last with "first person horror", but it managed to gain the attention of not just the whole gaming community but actual mainstream media as well. What it did to the horror genre in general was remarkable - it inspired hundreds of game developers (to better or worse) to create their own versions of P.T. For instance I've never heard my friends mention the Silent Hill games, but when P.T. was at its peak many of my friends mentioned it totally out of the blue. Like "Have you heard about the new P.T. phenomenon?". I think Kojima deserves some praise for creating such an iconic marketing campaign, that had never been done before in video game history.

Nevertheless, we have no idea what Silent Hills was actually going to be like, but I highly doubt that it would have been a first person horror game. P.T. was nothing more than a "playable teaser", a side project that Kojima and del Toro realized could be used as a marketing campaign to announce a new Silent Hill game.

Like, why even use motion-capture if you're making a first person game? I think we can safely assume that Silent Hills was going to be a classic third person game at its core, with only certain parts of the game being in first person. The them of the game was going to be something along the lines of "being stuck in an endless loop", which was emphasized with the "S" of Silent Hills symbolizing "8" or "∞" the symbols of eternity. I think as far as survival horror goes, it would've definitely made for an interesting Silent Hill game.

I agree that 4: The Room was interesting. I'm very sad that Konami fired Team Silent at the peak of their success. The amount of respect that we fans still have for this group of passionate horror fans who created the best survival horror titles of yesteryear that will hold a place in our hearts (and game collection) hopefully forever. Not so much the crap we got with Homecoming and Downpour (even though they aren't as awful as say, Umbrella Corps, I don't really like them as much).

I agree that 4: The Room was interesting. I'm very sad that Konami fired Team Silent at the peak of their success. The amount of respect that we fans still have for this group of passionate horror fans who created the best survival horror titles of yesteryear that will hold a place in our hearts (and game collection) hopefully forever. Not so much the crap we got with Homecoming and Downpour (even though they aren't as awful as say, Umbrella Corps, I don't really like them as much).

What came after The Room will always be imitations trying to be Silent Hill.

P.T., while not being entirely unique in the vast genre of horror games, was certainly not an imitation of previous Silent Hill games. In that sense it was unique.

I agree that 4: The Room was interesting. I'm very sad that Konami fired Team Silent at the peak of their success. The amount of respect that we fans still have for this group of passionate horror fans who created the best survival horror titles of yesteryear that will hold a place in our hearts (and game collection) hopefully forever. Not so much the crap we got with Homecoming and Downpour (even though they aren't as awful as say, Umbrella Corps, I don't really like them as much).

Well technically following SH2, SH3 and SH4 saw sales declines.

The original team was aware, which is why they were trying to branch out with 4 and change things up.

Since the majority of sales came from the west, Konami thought getting western devs would work. And thus the team wasn't fired, but disbanded and sent off to other areas of Konami.

So there was logic to their decision. But unfortunately it didn't turn out great. As time went on, Konami was branching out into many other avenues and the people up top stopped caring for the console gaming side, particularly in light of the Japanese market dropping off, and the mobile boom. The Hollywood movies also didn't light the world on fire.

It'd be nice if Konami kept Team Silent around as a prestige team. But outside of Sony and Ubisoft, there's not much support at big publishers for the smaller artistic affairs. And other pubs like EA and Microsoft tend to just buy up publishing rights to external indies when they see a chance. 3rd Party Devs are responsible to shareholders, in this regard, Ubisoft is an anomaly. Sony, by virtue of being the platform holder can take the risks to make their console attractive as the bulk of their income comes from third parties. Therefore Sony can afford affairs like the Last Guardian and a Gravity Rush to fill out the roster.

Ideally it'd be better if the members of Team Silent left Konami and joined either Kojima or Sony. But it's understandable that many want the job/pension security Konami provides and in Japan people tend to largely be loyal to the company. So they might not want to risk going off unless they feel very oppressed or are shoved out. Some like Ito went freelance, Yamaoka joined Grasshopper, or some like Toyama jumped ship years ago under more favourable conditions. There has been an exodus of to Kojima Productions, but those were largely already working for him under the old KojiPro.

I actually agree. I think even The Evil Within 2 might be more true to the Silent Hill series than PT was.

I agree with you. That's why I class that as my second favorite series now. It has so much in common with that game, but I also know that nothing will technically ever replace Silent Hill for what it did to the genre of survival horror gaming.